Taken
by Kuroshi44
Summary: Mana didn't die but Allen was taken, and the Earl is not amused. This has spoilers, is an AU what if, and I really can't think of what else to say about it.
1. Chapter 1

**IMPORTANT AN:** **I am messing with the time line to fit my needs** **, please forgive me and it shouldn't be too noticeable. All I really changed was that Kanda and Alma didn't wake up in the Asian branch until later, though physical age is still the same.**

 **WARNINGS: for kidnapping, swearing, mentions of past abuse.**

 **Disclaimer: don't own Man or make money from this fic. There are more than 19 thousand fics for this fandom and I haven't read them all so something similar might already exist, if so let me know so I can read it.**

The little boy with the red-brown hair and twisted arm was adorable, in Mana's not so unbiased opinion, despite his violent attitude when he attempted to prove otherwise to anyone silly enough to say it out loud, or just get too close. The boy was too small for him to take his foul language seriously, anyone that young was just repeating the words because they were the predominant language where they grew up, and the very idea of it broke Mana's heart.

Maybe he would take the child's abrasive personality more seriously if he hadn't seen him crying over what had happened to his poor dog.

Sometimes he wondered, in the middle of the night during the few minutes for which his mind was clear, if the boy minded the name he gave him. Allen was the name of a dog that helped him in his performance, a dog that died, and he wondered sometimes if the child thought he was nothing more than a replacement for the now dead animal. He wasn't, Lord knows he was not a replacement for anything, he was his own person and Mana loves him all the more for it, but sometimes he wonders about the message he sent when he gave the child that name.

But Allen suited him so much _better_ than Red did, and the dog didn't really fit the name Allen as well as the clown would have liked. Oh well, it was done now, and Allen hadn't actually complained about his name. Not before, and not once the paper work was filled out to make it official.

He won't say it out loud, but he is proud, in the moments he is aware enough to be, of just how far Allen had come when accepting human kindness and being with humans in general over the last year. His distrust is not surprising, and Mana would wait forever for the child to be ready, but even just a few months ago the boy would never have agreed to be officially adopted, to put his trust in another to take care of him when he doesn't even know that that is what people are supposed to do for the young.

Mana might not be the best parent, he knows he isn't quite sane enough for that, but he intends to make it work, and try his hardest to be the best he can for Allen.

Because Allen makes him feel whole, in some weird way, and he doesn't want to lose that.

 **TAKENTAKENTAKEN**

The Finder stared at the little boy handing out flyers on the corner of the street. Thin, guarded, and dressed in second hand clothes just that little bit too big, but surprisingly they still look _warm_ , he paid special attention to the way the boy hid his left hand, no matter how much he might have struggled to hold the flyers without it.

He and his team had been sent to investigate rumours of a Demon Child travelling around, that was their job at the Order after all, and after tracking down the boy and his "father", despite their inability to stay still, they were able to find the truth of the matter.

"Demon's" were always better at hiding, indistinguishable from their prey until they struck, this child stood out as something different and so wasn't likely to be an Akuma, but he still might turn out to be something of even more interest to the Order.

He and his team had been following the strange family of two for months now, waiting for confirmation that this would be a parasitic fragment of God's Crystal, an Exorcist to add to their ranks, rather than just another, regular, deformity. In that time, they hadn't seen any evidence to point either way, but they had seen enough to hope that they wouldn't have to put up with the brat in the long term. Kid was prickly, only in the last two weeks had they seen him start to lessen his guard, and only when he was looking at the man that became his father less than a month ago, and even still the brat insisted on being stubborn and rude to him. The Finder found himself hoping, rather fiercely, that they wouldn't have to bring him with when this was all over. Traveling with an unwilling companion was a pain to go through, mission from the Order or not.

It wasn't as if, if the boy did turn out to be an Exorcist, they could bring his father with them. The Order had no place for family, those that did not share blood and so useless in experiments even less so, though he wasn't supposed to know about that. Even if the higher ups might, on occasion, be convinced to let someone related to an Exorcist in on their own merits, after they had proved themselves an asset both by themselves and with an advantage to their association with their family members, that outcome was never going to be a possibility in this case.

The so-called father was insane.

It had been obvious from the first two days of surveillance that the man wasn't all there. It hadn't been anything extreme per-say, at least not at first, the man didn't talk to thin air or anything like that, it was just a whole heap of little things that built up to a rather clear picture.

Mana, at least the Finder thought that was his name, had the habit of getting confused and forgetting what he was doing, though he had yet to mess up a performance, he would be in the middle of getting his son food and then just wondering off until the boy complained of hunger and then the man would remember and go to get it again. He would talk to the boy as if he was someone else, treat him as someone else and call him by a different name, there seemed to be at least three people from his past the man would think had returned to him in the form of the boy. His behaviour was often childish, not seeming to understand the harshness of the world, then a switch would seem to flick, and he looked like a man who had gone through hell and would act with a seriousness befitting such a thing.

The boy knew, the boy had to, and yet the child just rolled with it as if it was all perfectly normal, and in the last few days appeared … _fond_ even, of the random mood changes. Over the last couple of months, the Finder had often wondered which of the two was really the parent in their odd relationship.

Movement brought him out of his thoughts, and he looked up in time to watch the boy struggle with the flyers. It wasn't surprising, in fact it was more impressive that it had taken this long, the boy's left hand was always covered with an oversized glove that restricted the limited mobility the deformed limb already had, at least according the rumours they had followed to get to this point.

And because it was an oversized glove, it fell off as the boy tried to juggle a stack of paper that refused to stay balanced.

The tiny green cross winked mockingly at the Finder from the back of the scarred red hand.

The boy had the glove back on in recorded time, if you had blinked you would have missed it and indeed most of the passer-by's continued on regardless. But the Finder had been looking for it and, despite what he would have liked from life, it seemed as if he had would have to take the crass little bastard back to the Order with them. He wasn't looking forward to getting such an uneducated little urchin on the train, as that was unlikely to happen without a fair bit of fuss.

The Finder casually released his golem and called to the rest of his team, four people in total with at least two of them being quite big people. With adult Exorcists, the Order tried to reason and bargain, or occasionally threaten if that was what it took, but children were less complicated, at least in some ways. When it came to the Order, if a child was an exorcist it was taken away, no question asked, it helped that the last Exorcist they had found under ten had been an orphan, just like this one, so as far as the rest of society was concerned the church was just doing its part to look after the poor unfortunates and keep them off the streets.

It didn't take long for the rest to arrive, the kid had just finished picking the flyers back up, and the four of them casually walked towards the always suspicious brat. It was a wonder he had managed to hand out as many flyers as he had.

'Hey, kid, need a hand?' he called out, trying to sound casual as they approached, 'those look like a lot of flyers for a little man like you, you look like you could use some help.'

The brat was on guard before the first two worlds had even left his mouth, eyes narrowing and posture shifting to something that would more easily allow him to defend himself, at least from most people. 'No,' there wasn't even a hesitation, kid was confident in his denial though his body language screamed distrust.

'You sure? What's a kid like you doing handing out flyers anyway? Looking for a bit more pocket money so you decided to help out?' he knew he was riling the kid up, that was the plan, plus it was how anyone else with the guts to approach would act, at least if they hadn't been watching him for the last two months like they had.

'I already said I don't need your fucking help, now fuck off!' his loud voice should have brought attention, probably would have if one of their members wasn't a Crow specialised in crowed control. The talismans had been up and activated seconds after he had given the signal through the golems.

'Come on, Kid, I just want to be nice, we can even grab some food afterwards, you look like you need it,' he was right in the brat's face now, his hand reaching over to put on the boy's shoulder…

He didn't want to know where the brat got the knife, but suddenly his hand was throbbing and metal glinted, aimed beneath his chin as that was as high as the kid could reach.

'I said back the fuck off!' the kid practically growled, but with enough force behind it that it still sounded like a shout.

Yeah, this was not going to be fun, but Crows were useful things.

The talisman hit the brat in the face less than three seconds later, the Finder used the little bastards distraction to grip his wrist, twisting it behind his back and squeezing it tight so he had to drop the knife, took hold of the innocence arm when he tried to swipe the paper off with that one instead while the Finder waited for the chant to take hold and the kid to pass out.

It didn't take long, but it was still longer than he would have liked, brat was strong, and the Crow was sweating by the time he had put enough strength into it to subvert the other's will. One of the two larger men in their group reached forward as he collapsed and threw him over his shoulder like a sack of kind of vegetable.

The Finder glanced at his hand and the surprisingly deep cut the brat had given him. He would be a good asset to the Order, once they broke his spirit enough that he would do as told and take out Akuma instead of humans.

 **TAKENTAKENTAKEN**

Allen was gone.

Despite his deserved reputation for being insane and scatterbrained, Mana kept track of the things that were important to him. Allen was important to him, and so all it took was for his son to be a few minutes late getting back from handing out flyers (something he hated him doing alone, but the child still wanted some independence) for Mana to know that something was wrong. Allen was rarely late, the few times he had been were not good, so only five minutes after his child was supposed to be back Mana was already heading off to look for him.

He found were Allen had been easily enough, the flyers scattered and floating away on the wind, but his son wasn't there and hadn't been for quite some time for the flyers to have drifted about the way they had. Which meant that he had to keep looking, ignoring the worthless paper as he moved on in the hopes he would find his child soon, before anything happened to him.

Because Allen wouldn't run away. Oh, it had nothing to do with emotional attachment, Mana knew better than to expect so much from his poor child so soon, but Mana was a known source of warmth, food and safety, and Allen, who had grown up on the street, wouldn't risk losing that without good reason. If Allen wasn't home on time, if Allen wasn't where he was supposed to be, it was because something had happened, or someone had taken him.

Hours of frantic searching later Mana still hadn't found him, had found no trace of him and had no idea what to _do_. Allen was a smart kid, the last time someone had decided to do something about the "Demon Child" his son had made sure to cause a scene and make himself easy to find, even though this was before the child actually believed anyone would come looking.

He wanted Allen back, needed him back. His precious little boy, the one he had only just been able to officially adopt as his son, who was _his_ to care for, was missing, and he had no idea on how to find him again. Outside of the thugs who were horrible enough that they would beat a child because of his arm, he could think of no one else that would try to take his boy, but this was too clean for the usual sort of riffraff.

Wait, Allen's … arm?

Something, something was there, slowly bubbling up to the surface of his mind and becoming _clear,_ despite its usual chaos. Images were drifting past: a rose cross on black background, a green cube, people fighting, strange people in strange uniforms that covered almost all their skin but were otherwise really plain, others in a different uniform with talismans in their hands.

Glimpses of those people in the plain uniforms that he had caught of the last two months, and promptly dismissed as his paranoia even as he increased their travel rate to just that little bit faster.

The glint of a green cross imbedded in Allen's hand the very few times the boy had let his guard down enough to show him.

Children with the Rose Cross on their chests fighting for their lives against hulking metal creatures, the epitome of human corruption.

The Black … Order? Allen, his Allen, was an … Exorcist? Or at least, was supposed to be one? The people in the uniforms, had the Black Order … taken … his Allen? His poor, precious, Allen was going to be abused and broken and turned into nothing but a human weapon to die for a cause he wouldn't be given a choice in whether he cared about or not?

The Black Order had taken his son. Taken _his_ child, stolen what belonged to _him_ without a care to legal matters, or just who they were stealing from. How dare they, how dare they take something from _him_ , he was … he was …

He was the person who had witnessed as several millennium passed him by, the clown who was nobility and the laughter at the end of the world. He was the creator of a weapon that manifested the darkness of the human heart, the person who would use that weapon to save the world by destroying it. He was the enemy of the innocence and corrupt Black Order who tried to control it, the Black Order who had taken his _son_.

He was one half of Adam, the millennium Earl, Mana D. Campbell and Mana Walker, the person who had killed his own twin.

Mana _remembered_. Remembered all he was and everything he had wanted to forget, and in doing so led to his madness. But he needed to remember it now because Allen _needed him_ , Allen and Neah who he wanted back but couldn't be allowed to destroy his Allen.

He had a family and he had a son, a son he would do anything to protect, even face the past he had run away from for so long, even call together his family in order to take out that organisation even though that hadn't been the plan. He would tear the Order in two, crush it to pieces and salt the earth it was built on, if it would help him find his precious Allen.

The grin on his face was not human, it might even have scared Allen away from him had he seen it, but Allen was allowed to be scared and to go somewhere else so long as he was _safe_ , which the Order was not. Eyes opened to the wonderful sight of all his little Akuma swarming around him, drawn to his aura as the Maker. A dark chuckle escaped him as he put on his suit, his battle armour, he was going to war against the Black Order after all, he had to be dressed for the occasion, in case any survivors tried to rebuild, they shouldn't know that he was once _human_ after all, it suited him to have them think of him as the King of Hell or some other such rot.

Soon, the armour would be discarded, there wasn't a need for it, after all, when he was being truthful with himself about what he had done. But not yet, not until he had his Allen back and safe and away from that place that broke its apostles and won the war for him faster than even his Akuma could achieve.

The Black Order had finally poked the bear one too many times, and his patience had run out. Now they would see firsthand just _what_ the Noah family was capable of.

 **TAKENTAKENTAKEN**


	2. Chapter 2

**AN: same disclaimer as last chapter, hope you enjoy the second part of Taken**

 **WARNINGS 1: mentions of suicide attempts, same as previous chapter,**

 **WARNINGS 2: parts of this are written from the perspective of Lenalee while she was mentally ill, they may be distressing and/or be confusing, and are probably not very accurate as to how someone in this situation would actually think.**

Lenalee is a good girl.

Or she was.

Maybe.

Lenalee thinks she used to be a good girl.

But that can't be right.

Because if she was a good girl, then why is she being punished like this?

She just wants her brother, her parents, her family.

She just wants to go _home_ , even if she knows it's destroyed, is that so bad?

It must be, because they're punishing her for it, they won't let her _leave_.

How long has it been? She's … nine now? Everything happened just after she turned … six, so she's been here roughly three years. That's right, isn't it? Her numbers aren't that good, she hasn't been able to practice them recently, she suspects others her ages are better.

Nine, does that make her a big girl now? Is it because she's a big girl that she isn't allowed to see her family? Is she meant to be old enough now not to need them? Is that why she isn't a good girl, because she wants to go home and she's not young enough anymore to be allowed to want that?

She's been here three years, but she doesn't feel _right_ here, she feels like a prisoner. She wants to go home, she asked them to go home, but all they do is tell her that _this_ is supposed to be her home now and called her ungrateful as they locked her up as punishment.

Or maybe they locked her up because she tried to jump of a cliff. They told her that her family was dead, so if she's dead too she gets to see them again, right?

She knows her family is dead, she doesn't remember well but she _does_ remember. It was supposed to be a happy day, she'd just had a birthday, and they might not have had much but they had enough, and her large family just wanted to be together and celebrate that their youngest had existed for the last six years.

After that everything is filled with screams and bangs and smoke and ash and the people she cares about crumbling to dust.

Then the strange man is there, but not fast enough, and something is pointing at her oldest brother who is all she has left, and she just has to _move_ , to _fly_ to him, and something green hits her and she's not where she was and more things start exploding.

She just wanted her brother, Komui she thinks his name was but even that's faded, but the strange man had her and her brother wasn't _there_ , and the next thing she knows is cold concrete walls with guards and she's not chained up but it feels like she should be.

They stayed there, for a while, in those concrete corridors, but she doesn't remember much because everything was just so _different_ without any warning that things were going to change and she was in so much pain because she could remember her mother's face as it turned black and crumbled away to dust to be blown away on the wind. Then they put her on a ship with lots of people in different uniforms that she _doesn't recognise_ , and someone is trying to teach her to talk in some other language because apparently even her country and ability to talk to her family is something she is meant to discard.

But Lenalee's a good girl, or was a good girl, and so she tried to do as they asked, because if she's a good girl they might take her home, or at least to what's left of it, and her brother might be their because he was when they took her.

Right?

It's hard to be a good girl, and she keeps asking to go home, and that must make her bad girl because only bad girls get punished.

No one has time for her, in this different place that speaks in strange words that's she learning but it is still just more, cold, concrete, corridors and people she doesn't know getting annoyed when she gets bored and wonders off and imagines that her parents are here too and she'll find them if she looks hard enough.

Because the lady next door said that our important people are always with you, no matter what happens.

And she makes the mistake of saying this and that's when a man with a pinched face tells her what it means to be dead, but she's too young to really understand, and that makes her a bad girl, the wondering and the not understanding, and so she gets punished.

It's just sitting in her room, more shouting to work harder, but punishments feel different when you're not sure what you did wrong.

Because Lenalee's a good girl, or so her parents said, but her parents are dead.

And she tries to be a good girl, for two years she tries, and surely that's long enough to be allowed to go home? Because this isn't home.

And thinking that makes her a bad girl but she can't stop, and she was always told she was a good girl, so maybe she doesn't want to be a good girl any more.

So maybe she starts wondering again, at night, because she's so bored and alone and people only see her when they're shouting. This place is meant to be her home but she doesn't _know_ it, and they said to make herself comfortable, all those years ago, and no one notices a little eight-year-old girl drifting around the dark halls so she takes advantage and starts to explore this "home" that's really a cage.

Even if that makes her a bad girl.

But she was a good girl, and all that ended up bring was that she hadn't been outside in two years.

And she sees the open door and hears the voices and the little boy that smiled at her when the others couldn't see and there is something _wrong_ with him but the others seem to know even if they don't try to help.

And suddenly she understands what death is.

And she realises that it wasn't angles that saved her two years ago, it was demons that stole her, no matter what they say.

And these people are bad people so disobeying makes her a good girl so she tries to escape, and they catch her and she just wants her parents but her parents are dead and so are her siblings.

Maybe even Komui.

Because it's been two years now, and he would be hear if he could.

So, if she's dead … because she understands what that is now …

And she jumps off the cliff.

And the top floor.

But her innocence won't let her die, and she's given up on knowing why, because if she was really important they would take care of her, and they don't, they just punish her for not being a good girl.

Then people are talking, about someone else back in China, back home, and how they are meant to be isolated but she's crazy anyway and if it _helps_ …

She's back on a boat, and they keep her tied up after the first time she tried to jump overboard. Then she's back in those cold concrete corridors with a language she hasn't heard in over two years. And I nice man smiles and tells her (or tries to) that there are other kids here she can meet when she feels better.

If she's a good girl.

But Lenalee has always been a good girl.

It's these people who are bad.

 **TAKENTAKENTAKEN**

The train car rattled around them as the engine dragged them forever onward, no matter how much one of the passengers wished it wouldn't. They had originally been sitting in a nice, fancy, carriage with comfortable cushions and a nice view out the window, but had been relocated to the cargo hold after the third escape attempt and sixth attention seeking scream to have occurred in less than two hours. It might be less comfortable, but Allen was happy so long as someone else was suffering along with him, which someone was.

Allen glared at the man sitting in front of him and tried to keep the smug look off his face every time he caught sight of the bandages that decorated his arm and hand. He hated this man, with a passion, him and the rest of his friends, and took great delight in making things as difficult as possible for them, something he had succeeded in so far.

Allen had learnt, back when he was still Red, about the cruelty of humans and their selfish, hateful, ways. From birth his arm had set him apart as something to scorned and destroyed with fire so that whatever demon infestation he had didn't spread to the "normal" people. Red had liked to attribute most, if not all, of his bad luck to the cursed limb he seemed to have the misfortune of being stuck with.

And Allen, it seemed, would have the pleasure of following that same path of sticky situations, all because of some deformity he had never had any control over.

The person who was currently keeping a watch on him seemed to be the leader of their little group of kidnappers, whether that was official or not Allen didn't know, but the others did defer to him. Being the leader also meant that that man was the one to take phone calls, regardless of if Allen was in what passed for a room or not.

'Yes Sir, we have him, his left arm is innocence, just like you suspected.'

It was a very weird set up, a bulky box carried around on their backs which seemed to carry a phone, a small one, and then a one-eyed Bat-like- _thing_ connected to one of the wires. Allen didn't trust it, just like he didn't trust the creature or any human being, Allen didn't trust _anything_ , it was just easier that way.

But he was listening in to a conversation, and those thoughts could wait till later, it was his probably-very-limited future they were discussing after all. If he ever managed to get away from these people he would have to research what Innocence was, other than the obvious, because if people could strip him of one why not the other?

'He's been a little … difficult,' that was one word for it, but Allen had hoped to be considered more of a problem by this stage though, 'but the Crow has managed to keep him in line.'

If there was one-person Allen hated more than this phony leader, it was the guy with the paper. The one that knocked him out with barely a thought, wrapped him in glowing chains that kept him still and sealed his mouth after they got sick of his language, all, apparently, without effort. Allen hated him, for no other reason than he made him feel like the helpless brat on the street again, waiting for the humans to be done with their game of Who Could Hurt the Demon Worst.

'What!' the word was rather loud, and Allen wished, not for the first time, that he could hear both sides of he conversation. 'No, Sir, I understand that, but … getting him to central was going to be hard enough. Getting him to the Asian Branch will be next to impossible.'

Asian Branch? What the hell was that?

'May I request back up … I know he's supposed to be a child and he's definitely not an Akuma but "Demon" is still a fairly accurate term … Yes … Yes, I know … We will try out best but … If you think that's best, Sir.'

And the conversation was over.

Soon after that, the bastard leader had the rest of his gang over and Allen caught enough of their discussion to gather that they would be going to somewhere called "China," which he thought was a different country, given what he had overheard while steeling form markets, but didn't know much more than that.

He knew what was going to happen, probably before they did, because all of them knew he would try to escape and there were just so many opportunities before switching to the boat. It would be so much easier if he just _slept_ until they were safely isolated over the ocean. The journey would be longer going that way, but safer when traveling with such a passenger than attempting to going over land.

When Allen woke up, alone and caged in some sort of transport crate with only one of their bat-things for company, he finally allowed himself to think about what he had so desperately been avoiding.

Mana.

Allen hadn't given these people his name, they hadn't really bothered to keep asking, because he didn't really know what his name _was_. He had never had a name, Red was something other had called him, something for them to spit and curse first on the streets and then at the circus. "Red" was another name for the Demon Child, akin to invoking the Devil himself, a bad omen directed at him in the hopes it would eventually get him killed.

Allen, Allen was the name that Mana gave him, the name he took from a dead dog, and the one that was now written on paper stating that it was _his_. But truthfully, he didn't trust that name, because he didn't trust people, not even Mana.

Allen was something he now called himself because it was a hell of a lot better than "Red", but he was still that same nameless orphan that had learned long ago that trust and emotional connections were nothing more than a means to an early grave.

It didn't matter if Mana was looking for him or not, didn't matter if the man was worried out of his mind or singing praises to the disappearance of bad trash. Mana had been nothing more than something that could get him food and keep him from freezing to death in the middle of winter and had done so for around a year. He had survived before and he would survive now, he didn't need to wait for a rescue that was never coming, because Mana never mattered.

It didn't matter than Mana had been the first person to give him a name that was a name, even if it had come from his dead dog.

It didn't matter than Mana had been the first person to give him a birthday, to tell him that he wanted to celebrate Allen coming into his life.

It didn't matter that Mana had been the first to treat him like a person and not a demon, even if sometimes he forgot _which_ person he was.

It didn't matter, it didn't matter, it didn't matter …

… that Mana had been willing to put on paper that Allen was officially his son, his responsibility, simply his to want.

Because Mana was human, and humans were liars, and no human would ever truly save the Demon Child Red from the Church, not even Mana.

And that hurt more than Allen wanted to admit, but he wouldn't cry, because Mana wasn't a dog and he wasn't dead, he was just another human that broke his promises.

And alone in that cage on a ship going somewhere _far_ away from anywhere Mana could have found him, even if he wanted to, Allen rebuilt the few walls that had come down over the last year, built them stronger, added more, buried Allen down with the rest of the remains of a heart he didn't want to have, and let the Demon Child loose once more.

Because Allen was just a name on paper, and it wouldn't help him survive, and so it would have to go.

 **TAKENTAKENTAKEN**

Mana stepped into the Ark with a flourish, allowing his Armour to swirl into nonexistence as he did so. After all, he was with his _family_ now, there was no need for it here.

Said family look … more than a little surprised, actually, to see him without it, and it occurred to him just how far gone he had been to wear it, not only when going into battle, but anytime he had called a full family meeting, whether it be to discuss battle strategies against the Order or simply to help Road with her homework. His insanity had been paranoia and confusion, not even capable of remembering who he _was_. So lost in his grief, he had tried to erase "Mana" and the sin he had committed, and paid the price.

'Good morning, Dear Family, it seems I have been rather … remise … in my behaviour lately, allow me to apologise, and try to put it to rights once again,' Mana, or Adam, or whatever the hell name he was supposed to be using now, could admit that their faces when he said that were just hilarious, and he probably would have laughed if the situation hadn't been so dire.

He took the moment of stunned silence to take count of who was here, who was awake already. Road, obviously, the others where currently calling her the first child on account of her escaping the massacre that was almost thirty years ago. Skinn Boric, current reincarnation of the Eighth Disciple, and the first to wake of their new family. Lulu Bell, Lustol, one of the more recent awakenings, and strangely loyal already, but then all of them were. The two brothers, Sheril Kamelot and Tyki Mikk, different fathers but same mother, lucky to awaken as Desires and Joyed respectively within days of each other. Tryde, representing judge, and Mercym representing pity, had both awoken several years ago, soon after Skin, and decided to abandon their human names as they felt their past lives had nothing to offer to the cause.

Road was the first to come back to herself, and give him a contemplative look. As the oldest, as the only one from _that_ time, she alone would understand what was going on, what he was doing.

And slowly, she smiled, before bursting into unrestrained, happy, laughter.

'Ahh, Earl! You're back, your back!' with a last laugh she threw her arms around his neck, kissed him on the check and continued to giggle in delight.

'Road, I need to breathe!'

'Eh?' she looked at the strained smile on his face, and hastily retreated. 'If you're in that form then … Mana? Have you returned?'

The Earl almost felt sorry for the rest of their family, having no idea what was going on, but there wasn't time to explain to them at the moment.

'Yes, but there will be time to talk about that later, not now. Now, we have much more pressing matters to discuss; the war, the Order, and the mistakes I have made in the past.'

'Mistakes?' Tyki muttered, obviously forgetting that, as a Noah, Mana could still hear him.

'Yes, mistakes, most notably the disaster from roughly thirty years ago,' Road stilled, her eyes widening at the idea that he would bring it up, especially without instantly cursing the "traitor". 'That mistake, at least, I have been given a chance to correct.

'For a while I have been … unwell, I did many things thirty years ago that I regret and, like a coward, I ran away from then, to rather devastating effects. You are my family and, in many ways, I have hurt you, and for that I am sorry. But I intend to try and fix this, starting from now.

'About a year ago when I was … rather confused, I met a small boy that was able to show me some hope for humanity, at the same time as he crushed it utterly. Barely seven years old and rejected by the world, he still showed kindness and acceptance to an old clown that was, shall we say, not all there.

'This child showed me just how far I had strayed from our path, just what I was doing to my family, and around him, for the first time in thirty years I felt whole.' Road's eyes widened further, she understood the meaning of those words. 'I decided to claim the child as my son, to bring him into the family, to protect him from the world that has abandoned him, tried to destroy him, all for things beyond his control, just like it did to us.'

Oh, he had them, his family, he could see they _understood_. They might be surprised at his actions, but for now at least they would reserve judgment. And Road would probably try and adopt the kid herself, when they finally met.

'My Lord,' Lulu Bell said, 'may I enquire as to where the boy is, if he is to be part of the family, surely you should bring him here as soon as possible to avoid any … accidents.' Referring, of course, to the Noah's love of playing with humans.'

'Ahh, that were things get complicated. I mentioned that they humans rejected the boy for things beyond his control? Somehow, the boy was infected with innocence, before he was even born, and it deformed his left hand, earning him the nickname "Devil's child".' Disgust showed on their faces, either at the idea of innocence or the nickname he wasn't sure. 'Recently, the Order became aware of it, mostly through that nickname, and decided to once again take what does not belong to them because, apparently, they need children to fight their wars for them, as they have for at least a year now.

'So, you see, I, unfortunately, did not call you here to introduce you to my precious little son, I called you here to request your assistance in declaring war on the Order, and getting him back.'

The Noah looked at each other, with the exception of Road who had made up her mind long ago, when Mana mentioned being whole again.

This was a _request_ , not an order, and the child had innocence and wasn't a Noah, and there was something else, something that Road understood but they hadn't been told about yet, something _big_ was going on.

But …

This was an eight-year-old child, if their math was right, and if he hated humans already than the Order would destroy him. Born with Innocence? As well as being expected to fight for something he likely didn't believe in, he would be experimented on, tormented, and it had already ruined his life once.

And the Earl was just so _different_ , being serious, calling and _treating_ them like family, giving them a _choice_ , a fierce protectiveness in his eyes going hand in hand with anger and tempering it to something _useful_.

Their decision had been made before they even knew they had a choice.


	3. Chapter 3

**WARNIGS: similar or the same as previous chapters plus: non-graphic gore and torture, character death but no one I like (trying not to spoil this), slightly more graphic description of battle ground aftermath and some wounds and things that generally happen in the manga/anime anyway.**

Yuu hated the world he woke up too, most of the time he hated that he had woken up at all.

All these people were always trying to cheer him up, trying to get him to stop snarling, and none of them seemed to realise that they were one of the reasons he was acting like that in the first place. He lived in a cage, and they were his jailers, and yet they seemed to think that he should be happy to be trapped and honoured by the pain they forced him to feel because it would help them save "humanity" from this "Earl" and his "Akuma".

Some days Yuu couldn't help thinking that that bastard all these people were worried about probably had the right idea. Most days he resented his regenerative ability that meant he had to keep standing back up when all he wanted to do was lay back down in the pool he crawled out of.

The world Yuu had woken up to was bright lights, loud noise, and pain. These scientists were constantly shoving him into observation rooms and shining a light on him, making him feel so exposed with the limited clothes he and the other, Alma, were allowed that left them feeling so naked when compared to those around them that covered nearly all their skin. Everything was loud, whether it be the other talking, the scientist giving orders, or his and the other's screams as their bodies were ripped apart in searing agony as they were forced to do what they were told, and in the silence as their hearts stopped had to listen to that too-calm voice as it ran through a verbal dissection of him as if he was just another object.

The only place where Yuu could relax in this new world was on the edge of his old one, in that cold and quiet room where the others still slept. Only there could he get away from the chaos, but not always the pain, and be allowed to think about what his life was like.

And the answer he always came up with was hell, and these scientists were the real demons no matter what they said.

It was where he was currently hiding, the others would be looking for him soon but for now he had time to try and sort out his thoughts, to try and dissect those around him the way they loved to do him.

One of the people he was constantly forced to associate with, one that was often on his mind, was the other one like him, Alma Karma. Alma creeped him out, and then had the audacity to wonder why. The other was always smiling, getting along with these so-called scientists that were their jailers and torturers. Yuu couldn't understand his willingness to buy into their bullshit, their shoddy explanations and excuses. Alone in this dark room surrounded by those that slept he could allow himself to wonder if Alma's acceptance was a result of having been awake longer … and broken utterly in that time.

Nothing made you more compliant than the knowledge that you where never going to escape your hell.

But it wasn't just the constant torture and death that he had to survive, and in some ways he could understand that from their point of view as he wasn't even human, that had him so uneasy lately. No, it was the whispers that these demons hadn't realised he could hear. It wasn't anything concreate, nothing definite had been said around him but that didn't mean that decisions hadn't already been made, but every now and then he would hear a comment that had his blood freezing and hoping they were just making off hand remarks that wouldn't lead anywhere.

Because Yuu's only hope right now was that he _wasn't_ human, not anymore and possibly not ever, and he wanted to believe that these monsters would never do to a _real_ child what they had done to him and Alma.

Several days later all of Yuu's fears where confirmed.

A nine-year-old girl by the name of Lenalee lee had just arrived, and the complex was in total upheaval as they moved her around without ever letting her loose or out of sight. It only took a few minutes for Yuu to understand what the problem is; like him she wanted to go back to sleep, back to the "before", but unlike him her own body won't stop her by recovering and dragging her back to consciousness if she tries, so they have to result to other means.

Because this girl, this tiny child, actually had the option of not waking up if she goes to sleep the right way.

And Yuu is disgusted by how much he envies her.

But he supposes, just this once, he can consider these demon's as having done something right. After all, unlike with Yuu and Alma, these people are actually trying to _help_ her. Lenalee Lee is here because they hope that being around children her own age will help her get better, help her look forward to tomorrow and the day after, even if these people aren't really people and have barely been awake for a few months and so aren't really her age.

These bastards do have some sense, after all, as they make sure that she is only exposed to Alma and only before the synchronisation testing. They try to get Alma to succeed with Lenalee Lee the way he failed with Yuu, to make friends and help her adjust to a life she doesn't want. Yuu might not be allowed near her for fear of his violent temper, but he still sees and hears more than anyone else in this god damned facility. Pretending that you don't give a damn about anything outside of yourself has its benefits, people forget to be so guarded around you.

Or maybe they just don't care what a trapped little experiment is likely to overhear, its not like they will ever have the chance to tell anyone.

And so, Yuu knows that Alma sits beside this girl with her hands tied to the bed and prattles about the "safe" things he can talk about and helps feed her and promises to be there tomorrow as the girl stares blankly to the side of him and responds to nothing. Yuu knows that this girl is an exorcist, that she is what they want to make them, and that she has already seen death and destruction despite her age. He knows she is to fight, and has already, that she has been through training that is less then his experiments but more than a girl her age should have to go through. Yuu knows that she's not meant to be here, that he and Alma are supposed to be top secret, and he knows that these people don't care about any of them, not really, and they just want more child soldiers in their army to fight a war that never belonged to them.

Yuu knows that despite what these people think, he would probably be the best person to help her, because Yuu can't harm a child that's already hurt, and Yuu understands more than he ever wanted to.

And then, several months later, another kid arrives, even younger than Lenalee who still isn't talking, and even more hurt than even that now broken child.

And it is everything that Yuu feared when they brought in Lenalee.

Because no matter what these people say, the child that refuses to give his name is human, and some days they treat him even worst then they do Yuu and Alma.

 **TAKENTAKENTAKEN**

Red should have kept his damn mouth shut, or succeed better in going along with whatever they said.

Though Allen wouldn't really consider it his fault, this wasn't his world, he had no knowledge of what was normal and what was not, he was going to make mistakes and it was just unfortunate that his first one had cost him so greatly.

The part that was Red snarled and tried to bury that fragment that Mana had drawn to the surface back down in the dark where it belonged. Allen was a name on paper and a voice that sounded suspiciously like Mana that tried to show kindness to him even when it wasn't real, in the hell he had just walked into it was unneeded, Red was more useful, and neither were his name anyway so what did it matter how he referred to himself in his own head when he wouldn't say those names allowed anyway.

That's right, they didn't even bother asking his name more than once, especially after he bit a few people, he should probably get used to calling himself "San*" now anyway.

San had arrived in China a few days ago, turns out it really was another country with a different language and everything, and the first thing they had done was track down someone who spoke English and start asking questions and trying to explain why he should be happy this was his new "home" while dodging his teeth. He had paid attention long enough to come to the conclusion that these bastards were just as bad as anyone else he had ever come across connected to the church, no matter what they were preaching, and started to use his time for the more productive past time of trying to escape.

It was just bad luck that one of the first questions they had asked, while he was still paying attention, was how long he had had his innocence, and just how it behaved in the presence of Akuma.

He hadn't known what Akuma were, still didn't have an answer to what innocence was, and the fact that as far as he was concerned his left hand was just a deformity he was born with was obvious because he didn't even try to hide it, thinking he could convince these people they had the wrong person.

Turned out he was the one that was wrong.

A "miracle", an "anomaly", another "piece of the puzzle" and so many other things that set his hair on end as instincts honed from years on the streets started warning of the danger to come. Words like that were never good, they were just more words for "demon" and "freak" and normally preceded the orders to get the fire ready when spoken by the church as they prepared to "cleanse" him.

And like so many times before, those instincts had been right.

These people were no different to any other hypercritical, self-indulgent church, even if they showed it differently.

Were somehow even worst.

It started out almost okay, they continued with their explanation as to why this was where he belonged and so should just do as he was told. The explanation finally answered his questions about what innocence was, and drove home the fact that these people were insane.

It didn't help that, during the explanation, they also drove home the fact that even here with the other apostles and freaks, he still stood out as someone that defied nature and would never be considered normal, even by their extremely skewed views.

And Allen would never willingly follow a group that tried to justify throwing children to their deaths, manipulating their entire lives, in order to save a race that was already rotten to the core and showing more of just how much every day.

These people didn't deserve saving, and the other three children in this so-called facility didn't deserve the life they were being forced to live.

After the long-winded explanation that was nothing more than propaganda being spouted by brainwashed fools, things started to get a little more iffy. Those that could speak English tried to teach him Chinese, so that he could actually talk to his new "comrades", and that wouldn't have been so bad if the lessons hadn't been combined with "training" so that he could use his left arm like weapon.

That training consisted of throwing him into highly dangerous situations in an attempt to make him so desperate for salvation that he would activate the god damn thing so that they could start teaching him how to use it. Those situations varied from people trying to attack him with guns, knives, or bare fists to throwing him into simulations of natural disasters, in the hopes that San would awaken that power in a desperate bid to survive.

These idiots didn't seem to understand that a lot of this stuff was just everyday occurrences to someone who grew up on the street.

It all failed, pathetically, but it sparked the interest in the scientist as his grievous wounds healed faster than they had any right to, not as fast as that weird Alma dude but fast enough for people to comment. When San failed to freeze to death, survived being crushed, and escaped the bush fire with only minor burns, the scientist decided that rather than "training" San's time at the facility would be better spent undergoing "examinations" so that they could understand how to help him activate his weapon better.

Those examinations were absolute hell, tests to measure his response to pain, trying to see just what was in his blood, cutting him open to see why the normal scans didn't seem to work on him. These people didn't give a damn if he screamed, just offered up empty words of comfort that meant nothing to him. So many times he suffered from fever dreams where Mana would somehow find him and save him, like he had once before when "Allen" had been caught, only to curse himself for his weakness in the harsh light of day. Always back to more tests and hiding him from the girl that looked like a corpse with the way she stared because they didn't trust him around her if he was managing to tear flesh from his captors without even the use of his innocence.

And San, always the non-human, the demon, wondered just how many times these so called "people" would make him bleed trying to get answers to secrets that where not his too keep.

 **TAKENTAKENTAKEN**

The Earl balanced on top of his level one Akuma, Lero in his hand, as he and his family watched from the sky the Central Branch of the Black Order. It was amusing, in a way, just how oblivious they were to both the world and the danger they were currently in. Thousands upon thousands of Akuma surrounded the building in a cloud, the Noah had gathered, and Road already had several doors leading into the strong hold open and waiting to let the army in.

These people didn't stand a chance.

Mana laughed, looking fairly demonic with his Armour on. This was the central building, it was supposed to contain all exorcists that were not on missions plus any that were in training, though only those currently without a Master. His son was an exorcist, these people had taken him, this was the branch most likely to have him.

But this was also the _Main_ Branch, it was where all the information and orders came and went from, where all the records were stored. This was the most likely place they were keeping Allen, but it wasn't guaranteed. What was guaranteed was that, if he wasn't here, then there would be information and records on where he was. Attacking this place would tell them where Allen was, if he wasn't already here, and it would show the god damned Order that they were not safe, that the Akuma were capable of striking a blow to their heart of operations.

'Remember, children are to be unharmed, leave some of the adults alive so we can question them, and please, don't destroy any of their records, information is a weapon in itself,' Mana said, his voice with a singing lilt. 'Oh, and if you run into a General, do be careful, I don't want any of my precious family getting hurt, after all.'

Several of the Noah smiled, Tyki included, at his words. Several weeks ago they wouldn't have been able to imagine the Earl stating that he cared about them, telling them to be careful. Prior to "Mana's" news about his son Allen they would have been told to get the job done and left it at that, they might have liked to _think_ that the man cared about them, at least to the point of rather important chess pieces, but despite how he sometimes called them, none of them had actually believed they were family.

With the Noah's new determination not to let their new father figure, Mana, down the Order really didn't stand a chance. They fell on them with all their hatred of humanity and anger at being denied the opportunity to meet the one that that had made just a drastic change in the Earl possible. The battle was bloody and short, the screams rattling around the remaining ruins that had been a building just an hour before.

One hour and thirty minutes from when the order to attack was given, only twenty people from the other side were still breathing, and most of them were more than a little worst for wear. Two exorcists remained amongst that number, the rest of the fighting force left in scattered heaps of severed limbs amongst the rubble, including two generals that were now missing several vital organs. The rest of the current list of survivors were scientists and a high-ranking inspector by the name of Malcom C. Leverrier, his crow body guards spread out in pieces with the rest of the deceased.

The Millennium Earl stood before the remains of the Black Order central building in all his armoured glory, a stack of documents at his feet that would, hopefully, point him in the right direction to find his son, and looked down on the filth that had the guts to call themselves human after all the sins they had committed. Behind him his family stood, Sheril manipulating his strings so that the pests couldn't move and make a nuisance of themselves. Tyki, Road, and surprisingly Skin gathered around and unsuccessfully tried to comfort the three children that had been found hidden away in the labs. Lulu bell, Tryde and Mercym stood between the children and the Earl himself, standing at the ready for when the order to remove the last of the filth from existence was finally given.

None of them were happy about what they had found in those labs, the three children already surrounded by bodies that were way too small that had been cut up and preserved in jars, children that themselves showed scars from the experiments that these scientists were conducting to try and boost their fighting force. The children were not even exorcists, these so-called people wouldn't risk their apostles like that, they just had the misfortune of being related to one or another, making their blood useful.

'Weellll, Leverrier, we have a few questions regarding your operations, especially what you have been doing to a couple of child exorcists, and you seem like just the person to answer them,' The Earl said in that childish, lilting, voice that was, in reality, just another way to mock the man before him. Allen hadn't been at this Facility, and given the state of the children that had been Mana wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not. They had files, and one of them was sure to say something, but there were so many, and time was of the essence.

The man snarled, causing more blood to trickle from his split lip down his chin, and spat a loose tooth on the ground in a bloody mess before responding. 'You'll get nothing from me, Millennium Earl, I might be considered a devil by many, but you are the real evil of this world and I still have my pride as a human. I don't care what scum you get to follow you, they're all just freaks and traitors and one day you will all get what you deserve.'

'Road,' the Earl said after a beat of silence, 'take the children somewhere safe, they don't need to see what's going to happen next, they have been through enough already.

'It seems,' the man continued when Road had returned from her side mission, 'that I need to teach you to be careful about what you say about my precious family. Maybe the lesson will also convince you to answer the question.'

For the next few hours Leverrier screamed, before words and information finally made their way through the noise, and Tyki put the creature out of its misery with another bloody hand through its chest.

'We have what we came for, feel free to get rid of the rest.' The comment was off hand, but the Noah could see the barely contained fury even through the Earl's Armor.

'What did you do to the children?' one the scientist, someone that appeared to be of Chinese descent, called out as the first of the scientist started dying.

'Huh?' Tryde sneered at the man as he casually broke someone's neck.

'What did you do to the children?' the man asked again, only the tiniest hint of fear in his voice.

No one answered him, he was an inferior human, but at least one of the Noah felt her curiosity rise.

'Earl,' Road practically sang as she skipped closer to the scientist, 'let me play with this one.'

And the body of Komui Lee went limp as his mind fell into blackness, a blackness that faded into his worst nightmare.

What felt like an eternity later, he woke, gasping for breath with a scream on the tip of his tongue, one he had to choke back as he noticed the bodies of those that surrounded him and realised he really was the only one still alive.

'Congratulations, human, you've impressed me,' coming from the Earl it didn't sound anywhere near as much of a compliment as it should have. 'And as a prize for having done so, I'll help you get back what the Order took.'

Komui stared at the insane clown before him, his mind going blank.

'This wasn't a random attack; like you, the Order took something from me, something that does not belong to them. I am offering you a chance, just one, to come with me and I will help you find your sister and let the both of you walk away from this war in one piece, both your lives intact. You don't really have any attachment to these people, do you? You just want to save your sister from being alone, from having to suffer thinking that she is the only one left. Come with me, and I will free you both from these pathetic chains of hypocrisy that this place preaches.'

He shouldn't, he knew that he shouldn't, but in the end Komui Lee couldn't help but reach up and take that offered hand on that field covered in death. Take it and follow the devil towards the gates of hell.

'Sheryl,' the Earl murmured as they started to walk through the door back to the Arch to look through the files and plan their next attack, 'I'm sure I can trust you to find someone suitable to look after those three children? With your connections it should be possible to make sure they are seen to properly.'

Sheryl didn't say anything, but everyone there knew that you would as was asked, even he as one of the more sadistic Noah wasn't heartless.

 *** San as in Three, as in the third experimental non-human, the person who gave it to him is a bastard**


	4. Chapter 4

**Thank you to all those who have favorited, followed or reviewed so far, this story is doing well. This story is planned and up to this chapter was already written when I started posting, but thank you for your suggestions even if they were not included or I did include something you would have preferred I left out. For those people who guessed where this was going, you scare me just slightly but thank you for your comments any way.**

 **Just a warning, this was never going to be overly long, sorry.**

San spat blood as he curled up in his "room" which was really an observation cell. Maybe, like Alma and Kanda, he could have a more comfortable place to sleep if he went along with some of the things those bastards said, but that required making things easy for those people and giving up on his escape attempts and no way in _hell_ was he going to do that.

He had only been there for a few months, though it was hard to tell when all his time was spent either isolated underground or unconscious, and it more than enough to be able to tell that he had been thrown into hell. His Chinese lessons may be progressing slowly due to his need to attempt to harm or kill his teachers, but even that word he could say in both languages.

San's days consisted of being thrown into dangerous situations to try and Awaken his "Innocence", which in his opinion had been lost so long ago it was not something he remembered, or being experiment on so that these people could understand just how it was that a person was able to obtain the strange crystal embedded in his hand, the one that had ruined his life from the day he was born, and function as a normal human being without having to go through the process of synchronisation.

The experiments were the worst, they mostly consisted of cutting him up or hurting him to see how long it would take to heal. These people didn't consider him "human", hadn't since they realised that he was a freak, and even if they did they justified their actions as for the "betterment of human kind", and Allen was getting sick of the number of times they tried to use that phrase to comfort him while he was screaming in pain caused by their hands.

He wondered if that was how they justified what they did to the other children, the way they punished him for not conforming as they tried to break him into the mould of their perfect little child warriors. Wondered if they really thought it would work when they only had one success out of four.

He had seen the other children, he wasn't really meant to interact with them, but that didn't mean that he didn't know about them.

San knew all about the girl chained to the bed, the one they did a little too good of a job of breaking and now couldn't be trusted on her own for fear that she would hurt herself. He wasn't allowed near her, a girl who hurt herself and a boy who hurt others were not a good combination, and maybe he felt a little disgusted at her weakness, but he also knew that there was no point in hurting someone already so broken, and that more than anything he pitied her and hoped that one day someone rescued her from the prison of her own mind. Then again, maybe it was kinder to leave her to the drug induced dreams she lived in, at least they couldn't be worst than the hell the rest of them had to live through.

Alma Karma was the only successfully broken weapon out of the lot of them, and he disgusted San at the same time as San couldn't help feeling a crushing sadness for the poor boy. He had been here longer than the rest of them, suffered through being told he wasn't human and all he remembered was the filth that spewed from these Scientists mouths, was it really any question that he turned around and accepted what he was given? Alma Karma knew nothing else, so of course he would accept the world he was shown.

That said, San was incredibly glad that he wasn't allowed to interact with the smiling non-child. he remined San of Mana, all of his bad points and none of his good. He was oblivious and surprisingly naive for someone who had grown up in this place, sort of like Mana, but Alma didn't have the strength that Mana had, if something ever removed the rose glasses on that experiments face he would probably break and shatter and try and take as many people as possible with him.

And so San was happy to stay as far away from that creepy person as possible.

And he could lie to himself and say that it wasn't because comparing him to Mana made his heart hurt with memories he wanted to forget.

Because Mana was gone, and he was never coming back. Even if Allen escaped he would never see him again.

Yuu Kanda was the last child in the facility. Like Alma, Yuu was an experiment, created not born, and someone that was being kept away from San because San wasn't meant to know about the top secret artificial warriors that would save the world if these people ever figure out how to give them a weapon without killing them, not that these people minded killing them, they just wanted them to be able to use Innocence while they died.

And these scientists were idiots if they thought that "Red" didn't notice the blood that never seemed to fully wash out of their clothes once they were finished with those two and their synchronisation tests.

Ironically enough, San actually regretted the lost chance to talk to Yuu. Yuu seemed like the only sane person in this place, no matter how he came to be, and "Allen" thought that they might share some of the same views. Because as much as he wanted to deny it, the lack of human contact was slowly driving him crazy.

San, Red, Allen, any and every name people had decided to call him, had discovered that he actually didn't mind being a Demon Child, if these scientists were what counted as Human.

And the green cross on the Demon Child's had got a little dimmer, and wished for Mana back, because, Noah or not, that man had been its last hope for ever giving its accommodator something to fight for. Funny how the very people sworn to help it had been the ones to ensure that it would never get to do its job.

 **TAKENTAKENTAKEN**

Yuu watched the new kid the scientists called San hiss and spit and break someone's bone as they tried to wrestle him into the operation room for his next set of tests, and admitted quietly to himself that it was a pity their captors wouldn't let them speak. Several months later and San was still just as foul mouthed and bad tempered as he had been when he arrived, as much so as Yuu himself. He knew that, if they were actually allowed to meet, they would probably disagree about something and take the building down with them as they tried to fight it out, but from a distance, Yuu had a large amount of respect for the brat.

Lenalee had been broken when she arrived, Alma had probably been the same since he woke up, but San continued to make life difficult for his kidnappers and torturers, refusing to break with the pain, Yuu had to admire his strength as he refused to give in.

Yes, as much as he knew they would likely argue, Yuu craved the chance to talk to the only other person who hadn't given in to these demon's pretend kindness.

Because at the same time that he admired San and his ability to hold strong in this place, in the dark of the night when he was supposed to be resting or those times he was able to sneak away to the room where the others were still sleeping, the fact also made him fear for what the brat had already been through.

San faced what the scientist threw at him with the kind of attitude that told them he had seen worst, and it scared Yuu that he believed him. He was human, he was child younger than anyone else in this godforsaken place, and even Yuu knew that children like that were supposed to be treasure.

Yuu wanted to talk to him, similar to the way he wanted to talk to Lenalee, because despite the horrid personality he displayed to Alma and those bastards he had discovered long ago that he couldn't stand by when people were suffering and do nothing. He tried so hard to keep people out, to keep them from hurting him even worst than these bastards already were, but children like Lenalee and San seemed capable of worming their way in even without him having spoken to him.

Maybe it was the look in their eyes that spoke of so much pain and the silent cry for help he seemed to hear from them.

Maybe it was that he saw himself in everything they did.

Hell, some days he even wanted to try and save Alma from the pain of this world.

And so, when San was finally dragged from the operation room, limp, and hurt and still cursing, Yuu followed them. He followed them to San's room, that for once didn't have mass amounts of security, and waited until they left before sneaking in with gifts in hand.

San started up with his hissing and cursing the moment the door opened for the second time after he had been left there, probably fearing it was one of the demons come back for round two having forgotten something during the first go-round of tests. It didn't sound very threatening, coming from a child lying broken on the bed, but it was impressive the amount of hate he managed to squeeze into those words.

Yuu didn't laugh at the kid's efforts, instead he hissed his own curses to be quiet and offered the food he had stolen earlier. He received a glare for his efforts, but he would not be discouraged.

'Just take the food, you brat, I didn't do anything to it and I know they haven't been feeding you after you managed to destroy that wall in training. Good job on that, by the way, cleaver to use their own torture devices against them,' Yuu muttered, the first half in broken English and the second in Chinese. From what he had seen the kid did more fighting and biting in language class than actual learning, it wasn't like he needed to understand the compliment.

'If they want to play with fire, they are going to get burned, whether it be their flesh or their precious walls. Just a pity the whole didn't lead outside, guarantee I wouldn't still be here if it had.' Yuu blinked as the brat retorted in the language that was most common when speaking in the facility, though many were bilingual it had been a unanimous decision amongst the scientist to only speak Chinese in order to force the kid to "adjust" as some form of mind game.

The brat snorted, and Yuu realised that he must have let his mask drop for a few seconds. 'Don't look so surprised, I have been here for months and I pick up languages quickly. I don't need those stupid lessons, but it helps when those idiots underestimate me and think I can't understand them, means they're more likely to let something slip.'

He had to admit that it was a smart idea, before once again holding out the buttered bread and bowl of rice, and this time the kid took it, having deemed Yuu to have passed some sort of unknown test.

While the brat took his time savouring his meal, knowing the chances of when his next one would be, Yuu set about his next task for the night, checking that the kid had been treated after his last lot of tests. He was glad to see the bandages, and that they were on properly, meaning the bastards had actually put him back together this time.

They didn't always bother.

After Yuu had finished, with no small amount of grumbling and cursing from the red-haired brat, they sat in silence, waiting for the other to talk but also enjoying the rare quite of two people being happy to sit together without the need to make a fuss and noise. It was something they both appreciated, having lived lives where it was a commodity in need of treasuring. Human contact without the condition of rambling and questions that you didn't really want to answer, or didn't know how to in the first place, no whining for attention or accusation about things that were nothing more than someone else's imagination.

If was fantastic, but it couldn't last.

A quiet question broke the silence and the two found themselves talking about before, before the tests and the cages and their view on the world around them. Yuu talked about the people that smiled and tried to be nice, about the strange woman he saw floating around the halls who he felt the need to find even though he didn't have a clue who she was. San cautioned him to keep it away from the scientists, because none of them knew how Yuu had been made and the last thing they needed was for him to be destroyed because these demons considered him defective. And eventually San even spoke about Allen and Mana and a child called Red because he had no other name.

'You should go back to him, if any of your crazy escape plans work, back to this Mana of yours,' Yuu said quietly, the brat just snorted.

'He's better off without me, they always are, humans like to make pretty promises but in the end, they always break them,' the kid pointed out, and Yuu wanted to ask if the only reason he was talking to him was because he had been created not born.

'You said he was crazy, right? That he wasn't like the others and the idiot even went so far as to have it put on paper that he wanted you, if you have that why would you give it up so easy?'

The smile he got in return had its own mad edge, behind the pain and the resignation. 'Because what is the point when every other time just results in pain and disappointment? A thousand times before it hasn't worked, why should this one be any different?'

They end up arguing, they were always going to, about the right to lecture about giving up when all you want to do was go back to sleep and had never even tried or tasted that bitter remnant of disappointment in humanity.

Yuu had to leave before one of the demons came to investigate the noise coming from the brat's room.

He didn't know the effect his words had had on the child, didn't know how long San remained awake after he had left, thinking about the things he had said and the things he knew about the place they lived.

San still intended to leave, that was not something he would ever give up, bit now that job was going to be so much harder with three different pieces of baggage, only one of which was likely to prove useful.

And wonders if maybe, just maybe, it could be worth the risk of disappointment to go back to the only person who had ever offered him kindness.

 **TAKENTAKENTAKEN**

There was something _wrong_ with the building they were entering, something that made all their skin crawl.

The attack on the Central Head Quarters had been successful, no one could deny that, unfortunately it could almost be counted as too successful as word had quickly spread of its demise when the other branches were unable to get a hold of anyone who had been there. The investigation of by the branch heads had been quick if a little disorganised, and now the remains of the Black Order where on high alert for whatever had seen to the death of their colleagues. All of this meant that the Earl and the Noah had had to change their plan of attack, just slightly.

They were going with the more covert approach, sneaking in and finding where Allen was along with any other children before getting them out and raining Holy Retribution down on the people who thought ruining the lives of children was a good idea. This was why all the Noah that were awake were crawling through the Asian Branch of the Dark Order, a building that reeked of death and pain and all-consuming fear with the bitter after taste that was left after all hope was gone.

None of the Noah wanted to think about Allen in this place, of how the Earl would react if these people had hurt his child in any way, what he would do if the damage was more permanent.

Tyki's job was to walk through walls and see if he could find the children they were after, having read through the files about the Asian Branch thoroughly before they started this mission, they knew that they were looking for four children, the Earl's child, Komui's sister, and two experiments that had been created, not born, and never given a chance to be people. He was to avoid being see for as long as possible, using his ability to do so.

Things would have been a lot easier if everyone hadn't been on high alert already.

Scientist were everywhere and Tyki could only hope that they others were having more luck than he was. Lulubell and Road would be fine, the Earl was himself and quite frankly terrifying so Tyki didn't think he would have to worry about him, despite the temptation, the only one left he really had to be concerned about was his own brother, Sheril, who was the last on the infiltration team and the least suited to it. Skin, Mercym and Tryde were waiting with the higher level Akuma, ready to turn the building and all those still inside to dust the second the others had safely removed the children.

Tyki was just skirting around another set of Crow, their robes reeking of old blood that they hadn't quite managed to wash out, when he heard the screaming. The voice was high and young and grating as if the sound had been pulled from a young throat against the owners will due to immense amounts of pain. He wasted no time in trying to find the person owning that voice, dashing through walls and doors without touching them as he followed the path of that sound unhindered by physical constructs. There was very little chance that a person screaming in this place wasn't a friend of some sort.

The room he arrived at was something that would continue to haunt his nightmares for years after, and would cement his hatred of humans far passed what even his Noah memories could achieve. Human scientist stood around with clipboards and wire and machines that were attached to the too small body that lay on the bed like some sort of ritual sacrifice. They did nothing to help the child as he screamed in pain with mass amounts of energy and power rushing through his body in an attempt to destroy it.

The Noah of pleasure didn't hesitate, his ability to choose helping him to scoop the child and only the child off the table and away from these people that thought they had the right to mess with people's lives. The so-called scientists didn't even have time to fully register what had happened, that someone had interfered with what looked to be an execution, before Tyki was ending the lives of the would-be murderers and sending them to hell where they belonged.

Of course, that left him with an unconscious child, probably one of the experiments, and not really any clue as to what had happened to make these people start disposing of their precious apostles.

He did know, however, that the need to find the rest of the children just got more urgent.


	5. Chapter 5

It may not have smart, it may not even have been something the two of them were really happy about, but Red had to recognise that he and Yuu had slowly become friends over the nights of stolen food and bandages. They were small things, and most of their gatherings ended with shouting and arguing over something small and dashing down a hall to escape before scientist and guards caught them.

Red should have known it was going to go wrong, Yuu was his first human friend, as strange as their friendship was, so there was no way that it could be allowed to last.

Alma, he was quite happy to say, was completely caught of guard and rather terrified when the red-haired child crashed into him and slammed him against a wall and snarled in his face.

'What the fuck did you _do?_ ' the kid hissed at him aggressively, and despite him being younger and smaller Alma wouldn't have been confident in his ability to win a fight.

'I didn't do anything! Why do you think I did?' Alma said, not even having to fake his confusion.

'Don't play dumb, Yuu was with you just before they took him away. Yuu knows better than to trust them with things but you're all to happy to smile and go along with whatever the hell those bastards say. Something happened to him and now they are going to get rid of him and its all your fault.'

'What are talking about?'

'Those people, those idiots your all to happy too smile at and go along with even after everything they have done, they don't care about us, they only care about the innocence. Kanda was taken away on a bed and so that means something is wrong with him, if there is something wrong with him then he is no use to them, and if that is the case they will _kill_ him. You tried to make friends with him, he was hanging out with you, and now he's being taken away, if you really cared about him you will help me get him and Lenalee _out._ '

Alma was scared, Alma was bordering on terrified, and he really didn't want to think about what this kid was saying, or how on earth he could have known what he was talking about. 'But, but, the people still in the pools, what will they think if I just abandon them. And the scientist just want to help people, that's why they do the things they do…' this kid couldn't be right, there was no way that what he was saying was true. Alma had been here since he woke up, he woke up to help people.

The kid, who ever he was, laughed and it was nothing but a mockery of the sound. 'Wake up, grow up, realise that there is more to this world than the walls around you. Those people in the pool? They're lucky, you really want to subject them to the pain of living you and Yuu have to go through? Help people? Open your fucking eyes, they care about themselves and only themselves, they want to live and they don't care how many people they have to kill or hurt to do so. People aren't nice, People aren't good, People don't deserve our fucking pain just so that they can keep hurting others.'

He didn't want to believe him, he had no reason to believe him, but that quiet voice in the back of his head that he had been ignoring for so long couldn't help whispering that there was some truth to his words. Lenalee was sick, everyone knew that, and he knew from the way she talked that it was the fault of people like those that helped him and then tore his body apart in an attempt to turn him into a weapon.

The kid must have seen something in his eyes, because he pulled back and no longer looked angry so much as resigned.

'They are going to put him back to sleep, they are going to destroy him, because they think he knows something that will make him attack them. Knock them out, grab him, run, use the sewers if you have too. I'll distract them, they should be worried about finding me anyway by now. Whatever you do, get Yuu out, and then run yourself, you don't want to know what they will do to you if you start to disobey, trust me on that.' the look in his eyes convinced that Alma should take his word for it.

'The others-'

'Are happy where they are. I'll grab Lenalee and meet you outside, those people in the pools do not want to wake up, get over it. Now just do what I say and _hurry_ , if you don't move soon Yuu will be dead and it will be your fault.'

It was the perfect way to get Alma moving, and move he did. Red watched the poor kid take off in the right direction before turning around with a smile on his face at the idea of the distraction he was going to make. Those idiots really needed to keep their flammable liquids in more secure areas.

Lenalee would be easy to move, because Red had been planning this from the moment he arrived, and he could think of no better reason to get out than to keep the only friend he had.

 **TAKENTAKENTAKEN**

Tyki cradled the small body to his chest, staring at the bodies around him with disgust and hoping the kid wouldn't freak out. He needed to know what was going on, because something was wrong, and the smell of death and pain was getting stronger with every minute despite the fact that the child was no longer being tortured to death.

The kid did, eventually, shift within his arms with a groan, his eyelids fluttering before scrunching up with disgust at the smells that clung to Tyki's coat.

'You reek! Of all things I expected to dream about when they put me back to sleep being held by a stinky creep was not one of them.'

Tyki felt his eye brow twitch as the kid insulted him, but he couldn't have been more than ten or eleven at the most and after what Tyki had just rescued him from he guessed he should just be glad that the kid was with it enough to make such comments.

'Not dreaming kid, I am looking for someone named Allen Walker, people told me to try here, heard you screaming and thought that it any place that could do that to a child was not a place I wanted to leave him. Don't suppose you can help me find him?' the kid, who had slowly struggled his way out of Tyki's arms, didn't look like he knew who he was talking about, didn't look about to trust him enough to tell him even if he did either. 'He might also be going by Red? Look, Kid, I know his father and his father is rather insistent on getting him back, this brat is short, fowl tempered, red haired and has a paralysed left hand he prefers to keep hidden. Can you please tell me if you have seen him so we can get him and then get you all out of here so that these bastards can't touch you again?'

Yuu considered it. He didn't want to trust this person, and he was confused about why he was using different names for San and his head was mess with all things these demons had done to him and the lingering pain that echoed in his bones that hadn't really healed yet.

He couldn't think, he couldn't think! But this person was being unreasonably kind to him, he couldn't remember if the demons had showered him with false kindness as well or if he had imagined it, certainly some had pretended to not be so bad, but …

There were too many buts for his thoughts to progress, he wasn't smart and he knew it, and now he had to make a decision.

Looking up, he finally noticed the blood and bodies. The demons that had mothered him and tortured him and cut him up after he had died just so that they could make him keep fighting. These people who had put San through hell for no other reason than that they thought they had the right to if it meant they could save the lives of other people that did nothing but hurt others.

Not all humans were like that, and part of him regrated the death of the only people he had ever known, however a larger part of him could only feel relief and sick satisfaction that the people who were going to kill him for no other reason than _they_ hadn't put him together correctly after they tried to give him a second life after he had died for them once already were dead.

This person had probably killed them, and that probably wasn't a good reason to trust him, but if he was responsible for killing the demons then he probably wasn't that bad, right?

So he told the man what he knew about San, that the boy was probably in his room or trying to cause as much trouble of the Demons as possible, and the man smiled at him and thanked him and offered to carry him to safety since Yuu still wasn't too steady standing up. Yuu told him where to shove it tried to lead the way out.

Someone lying on a bed in the room next door made Yuu pause, the person was recognisable and part of him wanted to stop, see what's going on, see if he could help him, but…

'He's a possible subject for the same process they used to make you, he's as good as dead and they are keeping him alive in the hopes of using his brain and making him fight long after his time is done,' the man said softly, something like disgust and regret hidden behind his sarcastic drawl. 'You can't really do anything for him, once we have you and any other kids here out safely we intend to blow this joint to smithereens, it will give him the peace he deserves.'

Part of Yuu wanted to argue, to claim he should do something for the person who had helped him, but in the end he allowed the other to lead him away, because what he said was the truth and no one deserved the existence he has been forced to live.

He wonderd what happened to Alma, who had been trying to get him out of this place before they got caught, muttering and blubbering about a kid Yuu could only guess was San saying mean things to him and telling him that Yuu was going to die if he didn't help get him out while San made a distraction. Given the destructive capabilities of said child, he wondered if these people would even need to destroy the building or if San would get there first.

While Yuu was casually being rescued by Tyki Mikk of the Noah, the first person to try to rescue him was running around various pipes and corridors in a frantic attempt not to get caught, praying that the Weird Kid from before would never find out that he had possibly lost Yuu when the Crow had found them, and that the main reason they got away was the building shaking as some explosion occurred in one of the other labs. Alma didn't want to jump to conclusions, but he suspected said explosion had been the kid's idea of a distraction, in which case it did its job well. His current mission was a lot easier as many of the Crow and guards were busy racing around and trying to put out a fire that seemed to be burning steadily around one of the main training rooms.

He couldn't help thinking about what the kid had said, how these people only cared about innocence and not them, and that had gotten him thinking that if he could just bring Yuu his innocence, get it to synchronise with him, then they wouldn't kill him. He would show that kid that these people could be good, that they didn't need to run away to live and that they could all find happiness here, with the others.

He had thought that right up until he had found that room, found his innocence, and realised just why that kid was right. Why Yuu was so upset all the time and why he had been an idiot to fall for those bastard's false kindness hook line and sinker.

He would end them, end them, end them all. Even Yuu, Lenalee and that strange kid who had known not to trust them, death was better than this hell they were living, hell he and Yuu at least were meant to be dead already and Lenalee was here because she had made her feeling on the subject clear.

He could feel himself shattering under the weight of that body behind him, under his grief at his own foolishness, feeling his innocence responding to him, rising to continue the slaughter he had just begun-

And thin cords and strings wrapped around him and held him still, held him down as he screamed out his grief and his anger and thrashed to try and get out because the others didn't deserve to have this pain continue.

A small girl looked at him, looked at him with such pain and sorrow and suddenly he knew nothing but dark and comfort and a faraway happiness that could only be found amongst a field of flowers.

Road and Sheril had been traveling together, looking for any of the kids so that they could get them out to somewhere safe. It was easy enough with the fire taking up most of these idiots' time and attention, they would have called it divine intervention if not for the fact that that was more likely to hinder them than help. And then Road froze, before taking off at a run in a different direction.

Road was the Noah of dreams, she walked through dimensions the same way others walked through doors, quite literally at times, and that included into the heads and hearts of those around her. She might not be currently visiting anyone, but that terrifying scream as someone's entire world was shattered beyond repair was not something she could miss, no matter what dimension she was in.

She may have looked a child herself, but she was older than most of those present, and the sight of the poor child as his body was twisted by blood covered innocence and his pain shining through his eyes was enough to hurt her heart. Crows lay dead around him and she could see by the grief in his eyes and experience with her own pain driven blood lust that he was far from sated by his kill.

He didn't even hear her as she spoke while he raised that twisted arm. 'Papa, stop him, please.' Sheril didn't even hesitate before the boy was wrapped in his strings, screaming, and thrashing and trying to free himself. Road could only smile softly as she gave the boy a pleasant dream to keep him calm while they tried to rescue him from the horror these people had put him through, carding her hands through his hair as he slipped away and promised revenge on anyone who could do this to a child.

 **TAKENTAKENTAKEN**

Red swore quietly as he hunched over the living doll tied to the bed, there was no other way to describe her. Lenalee Lee had been broken for a long time, not moving and barely breathing as the people around her kept her restrained and forced food into her to keep her alive. She was like a puppet with its strings cut, falling to the hard ground to smash into unrecognisable pieces.

Getting her out of the straps tying her to the bed and keeping her from hurting herself was going to be difficult, and possibly not a smart idea in case she decided to attack him or use the opportunity to end herself, but Red had told that brat Alma that he would meet him outside with Lenalee, so taker her along he would. Red was a street brat, had seen the worst of humanity as they lied and stole and broke promises with filthy tongues in an effort to see who could hurt someone else more. he held no delusions about his morals, about the sins he had committed, but he had promised himself long ago that being a man of his word was something he would stick to.

It was difficult to sling the unresponsive body on to his back, she was only a year or two older than him but years of not enough food meant that she was a fair bit taller than him. Eventually he managed it and was able to start sneaking out of the building and towards the tunnels that Alma and Kanda should have used to escape, thanking the fires that still raged that those around him were a little too distracted to take note.

They were almost out when the crow found them.

Red was aware of pain, pain, _pain_ , as the bastards shot him with needles and through exploding paper around like it was nothing. He wondered at these idiots, that they would risk killing two of their oh so precious apostles if it would prevent them from escaping, by firing deadly attacks at two unarmed children, on of which didn't even seem to be conscious.

Red vaguely wondered if Alma and Kanda had run into similar difficulty, and tried to remember several of the old gods that people had abandoned to pray to that that hadn't happened.

He glared at them as they approached, his chest burned and a needle in his shoulder while he tried to keep Lenalee behind him, he would heal and she wouldn't, but then a too familiar face was smirking, and an even more familiar paper was flying towards him and he knew no more.

 **TAKENTAKENTAKEN**

Lulu Bell would like to say that she didn't care about anything but the man that had taken her in from the streets that night when the pain hit and that hateful God carved his stigma into her head. She would like to claim that the only reason she was rushing around with water trying to put out the fire that had destroyed nearly half of the head quarters already was only to try and keep her saviour happy by helping him find his son.

But she would be lying, and she knew it.

She wasn't human, hadn't been for a while, but what they had found in the Central Headquarters, what those few documents she had read _here_ before she had been called away to help with the fire, those had twisted her stomach in way that not even what she had seen on the streets had. She wasn't human and at the moment she had never been happier for it if meant she could distance herself further from the kind of creatures that would perform those kinds of atrocities.

The boy would keep her saviour happy, but even if he wouldn't she would still rescue him, because no one deserved to live through these kinds of things. Because she had seen a description of an "experiment three" just before they Alarm for the fire grew big enough to call even her away from her current forms work and what she had seen there had her worried about just what there was left for them to rescue.

"Edgar Chang! We caught some of the escapees and we need you to help us deal with them!' it was one of the lower ranking crow, and despite the façade she liked to keep, Lulu bell felt her blood freeze as she kept in character of the person she was imitating and followed the man to one of the Labs that wouldn't be reached by the fire for a while yet.

It wasn't clean, blood still doted the floor from the last time this room had been used. Two bed's where centre stage, two small bodies strapped down to them, one silent and locked somewhere in her own head, the other screaming and shout obscenities and trying to bite anyone that got too close.

It was as beautiful as it was terrifying, appealing to her inner Noah at the same time as the size of the two prisoners made her sick.

No one noticed as she released a small golem to let the Millennium Earl know that she had found his son. It was only seconds later that the wall behind her was reduced to dust as his armour covered form burst into the room.

Neither child screamed, but the scientists, finders and crow that had been in the process of setting up the equipment and strapping down the children did even if not for very long. More blood was added to the floor as Mana tore them apart with the holy Sword he carried, and no one would mourn these monsters.

Komui, there little hanger on, raced passed the destruction, not even sparing a glance at the twisted and mangled bodies that littered the floor, to get to his sister. Untying her from the bed and clutching her to his chest as he stroked her hair and murmured soothing words in her ear. The girls face was still blank, it would take a long time for her to approach anything even close to better, but even locked in her own head the way she was tears started to poor down her face at the sound of her brother's voice.

Allen, meanwhile, was having a small crisis of his own as Mana stripped his armour and embraced his son for the first time in too long. Allen who was fighting with the fragments of everything he had had to become in order to survive this place with his sanity approaching anything close to intact. He honestly didn't know if he was Red, San, or Mana's Allen at the moment.

For the first time since he had thrown away his humanity on the streets when he realised it was a liability, the boy cried and allowed himself to act like the hurt child he was.

'Why,' Allen sobbed, 'why did you come back for me? You weren't supposed to, no one was supposed to care, they never have before.'

'Because you are my son, and I love you,' Mana replied as he took his child in his arms.

And those words accomplished what all the scientist torture never could, they broke Red utterly and left the broken child that had been hiding underneath bare for all to see.


	6. Chapter 6

Lenalee giggled and laughed and raced along the white streets of the ark beside her adopted sister, her brother and the rest of their adopted family following along behind.

It had been five years since she and the others had been dragged out of that hell humans had created and given a chance to live. Five years of people truly, and sincerely, trying to help her heal from the damage they had done without trying to turn her into a weapon in the process. She was with her brother, the only remnant of her old family, and been offered a new one with an older sister she could talk to about absolutely everything.

She still had nights where she saw those other children screaming, saw them smile when the pain finally stopped along with their breathing.

Still had days she couldn't get out of bed or let go of her brother for fear of it all being something her mind had constructed in desperation.

And on those days her new family understood. They held her close and showed her that she wasn't there anymore, that other children were also safe and sound and that she had people she could rely on now, not the humans that were nothing so brilliant as they had liked to claim.

The so-called Black Order had lost its war, lost it before they even really found out what they were fighting, the Noah taking them down systematically from the moment they had pulled four small children out of the hell they called the Asian Branch.

A sudden shouting match of profanities echoed from up ahead. Road laughed, already recognising the voices, while Komui chuckled behind them as well. The shouting was coming from the centre of the Ark, the end point of Lenalee and Road's race and the dining room where they held their weekly dinners, all the Noah and their adopted families meeting up to celebrate that they would always have each other.

Of course, families didn't get along all of the time, something the swearing from up ahead proved.

Only minutes later the race had ended and the two youngest (appearing) girls where crashing into the those responsible for all the noise, causing a quick end to the argument.

Allen Walker continued his glaring match with Yuu Kanda even from within the arms of an ecstatic Road, despite the fact that she had seen him just the week before, for a few minutes longer before he sighed and let Mana's training kick in.

'Road, Lenalee, I am glad to see the two of you doing well.'

Yuu snorted but said nothing from his own impromptu cage of Lenalee, deciding not to continue the argument or acknowledge the limpet currently restricting his movement. Physically he may be sixteen, and as a teenager he rejected interactions with children that were so much younger than him, but those people had screwed him over so badly that some days he wasn't sure if he was six or thirty-six or something else entirely.

He could never be happier that his primary care had been handed over to Tyki, Irresponsible layabout that he was, his idea of looking after the highly disturbed child had been highly contested amongst the adults when first suggested, five years later and it was clear that it had been the right decision. All the children had needed something different in order to move on from the torture they had been through, Yuu needed someone who could roll with the punches, wouldn't get worked up about his quirks, and could help him realise that it was okay to act like a child some days and an adult on others. Yuu didn't need an adult to monitor his life or a father figure to try and coddle him, Yuu needed someone that was free enough to let him know that it was okay to accept his own freedom and behave however he damn well pleased when it came maturity, because age was never something Yuu would be able to do in a linear fashion ever again.

And if his maturity level happened to drop like a stone whenever he saw one of the only person he would ever call a friend trying to act like a grown-up gentleman at the age of thirteen(ish), well, that was his business, and no one had to know that it was the best part of his week.

Lenalee and Road took advantage of the distraction caused by Yuu being Yuu to switch victims. The boys noticed and decided they didn't care. Resolving the issue that Allen had, indeed, grown in the last week was way more important than mildly irritating adopted cousins trying to prevent them from killing each other, even if it was all in good fun.

Mana, for his part, watched over the chaos his family was causing with a smile on his face. All these years later but the fear of loosing Allen never really left. The backlash after the rescue mission had been … immense.

 **TAKENTAKENTAKEN**

With the last two children in their arms they had left the Asian Branch to be devoured by the flames set by their so called "Third Experiment", taking them to the Ark to be treated properly with the others. Mana, Lulubell, Tiky, Road and Sheril had managed to get all four of the former captive children back to the Ark more or less intact, physically, while Skin, Tryde and Mercym had circled the burning rubble and dispatched of anyone that had made it out alive. Mercym had also, on the orders of the Earl, checked if any of the other children in the pools were likely to wake up, before giving them the rest they deserved when he discovered that all them were faulty and would die in the pools before they even had a chance to breath air again.

Within the Ark things had been found to be taking a turn for the worst for several of the children. Lenalee turned out to be one of the few better off, even taking into account her mental state, with the possible exception of Yuu Kanda. The Broken Doll of a child had been placed in a magnificent room with two beds, one for her and one for her brother, and hooked up to a drip line to keep her hydrated and administer a mild sedative. It was quickly decided that restraints would be counterproductive, and instead three higher level Akuma that could be trusted around innocence were left on around the clock observation in order to prevent the poor girl from acting out and hurting herself or others. Her future would consist of years of therapy until she was able to trust the world around her once again.

Yuu Kanda, the child Tyki had pulled from the execution room, had seemed fine at first. He had been cognisant and capable of walking on his own while showing that the world around him was something he could deal with.

But like with the others, the Order had left it scars.

He couldn't trust; not the Noah, not the Earl, and certainly not the Akuma. He hadn't appeared to care about the other children, and then suddenly he was trying to wrench them from the Noahs' arms and screaming questions at them, asking what they had done. He would be talking to Lulubell about what was going on, acting like the dead soldier whose memories had seen the Scientist planning his disposal, and then Skin would walk passed with his sweets and he would revert to what could only be described as a fussy toddler.

Once they had brought all the children together the only way to stop him from screaming was to build a room for him that connected to all the others, to make sure that he could keep an eye on those he had classified as his responsibility and keep them in easy access for if he felt the need to physically check on them. Days would pass as the "responsible adults" in the room tried to figure out what would be best for him, if they should try and get him to treat someone as a responsible parent figure or recognise him as a self-sufficient, mature, adult himself. Eventually Tyki would talk the boy into leaving with him without getting permission from the others first, introducing him to the world around them and teaching him how to go with the flow and accept the new-found freedom and just what it meant.

The more responsible of the group would give Tyki hell, and it would take just as long for Yuu to adjust as it would Lenalee, but as the years passed, he would get better at accepting that not everyone wanted to rule his life or keep him confided to a cage. The world was so much larger that the Laboratory, and Tyki and the rest of the Noah intended to show him that while proving that he had home with them.

At the time when they first arrived back to the Ark with their precious cargo, however, they were all more focused on the last two of the rescued children, the two that had seemed to be dealing with the situation the best only to find that final straw to break the camel's back in the last few minutes before rescue.

Alma Karma was broken, their mind a shattered ball of glass turned to sharpened slithers that were cutting into them and causing them so much pain that they were willing to kill to get rid of it. Road had them in one of her worlds, keeping the body still and suspended with Sheril's strings. But the damage those scientists had done when the poor child finally realised just how deep the deception went couldn't be undone.

 _Kill them, kill them, kill them all. Release them from this hell, release them._

The words danced through their mind as everything they had ever known was called into question and spat in the face of. The first time they had risen to consciousness, caused by a second of inattention on the Noahs' part, they had tried and almost succeeded to dismember Yuu, and it was only that Yuu had superior regeneration that he survived the attack.

Lenalee would spend years in therapy learning to trust the world, Alma would spend them in a paradise created and maintained by Road. Only there could the child experience anything even close to resembling a peaceful life.

And Allen, despite everything, was the one who turned out to be hurt the worst as eight years of being the world punching bag and putting up with things even adults would falter at crashed on his shoulders all at once and he accepted the world for the messed up hell it had been, finally breaking under the pressure.

 **TAKENTAKENTAKEN**

'Heavy thoughts, Mana, something you need to talk about?' Wiseley's voice broke him out of his reminiscing.

Mana just smiled, more than used to that particular Noah's behaviour. 'It is rude to read someone else mind without permission, Wisely, please refrain from doing so, at least to family.'

Wisely just laughed, his eyes drifting over to the four young ones as they continued to play even if they would deny it if you asked them. 'I don't need to be a mind reader to understand you are thinking about something problematic. Or more likely, still worrying about things that happened more than five years ago.'

Mana just continued to smile as he looked over at his family.

Wisely and the rest of the newly-wakened Noah hadn't been there, they had awoken during the process of healing, but they hadn't seen the horror that had been the broken children immediately after they had been taken from that place. They simply didn't have the context to understand, not even Wisely who could pick the events out of their minds like it was nothing.

Allen had been bleeding heavily when they brought him, stab wounds from where the Crow had "restrained" him and poorly treated injuries that had yet to heal form the cruel experiments he had been forced to endure, they had had to rush him into surgery to save his life from the wounds that that place was so eager to ignore. Physically weekended, he hadn't been able to handle the idea that he was actually worth caring about, that simple fact contradicted his last eight years of existence, and so he rejected everything he knew and sunk into a state worryingly similar to Lenalee.

He was safe, but that was such a novelty that he couldn't even understand what it meant.

No, Wisely who wasn't there had no way of understanding the horror that went though him at that point in time.

And when he had eventually come to he had been … different. Whatever his mind had rationalised during that time had changed him rather significantly, altering his personality and everything. Lessons that were laughed at were now studied with diligence, manners something almost instinctive rather than a thing to be scorned.

But he was still his son, and that was all Mana cared about, and he was very careful to make it clear that he loved his child no matter how he chose to act.

Yuu and Allen had just managed to escape their various prisons of limbs when Alma finally arrived with her adopted mother Lulubell. The poor girl still had more than enough troubles, random bursts of violence being the least of them, but now at least Wisely and Road had managed it that she could at least attend family dinners. Even when asleep, Allen, Yuu, and Lenalee occasionally visited her in that Paradise that Road had made, it was how they had found out her preferred gender after all. Lulubell had eventually also decided to visit and proved to be the most adept and providing the structure and family that Alma craved, along with the lessons on how a girl should behave.

A work in progress, but far from the only one.

'How is the Traitor? Is the Barrier still holding?' Mana asked, probably suddenly to most people but Wisely was used to the weekly question.

'Me and Road already checked it. He probably isn't happy, but he isn't a threat to Allen, it's just as strong now as it was last week.'

The traitor, Neah, the brother he had killed almost 40 years ago, the brother whose death had sent him on a road to madness. Mana loved Neah, always had and always would, but he loved Allen also and Neah was a traitor to their family. It was simple enough to choose to imprison his memories in one of Road's worlds where they couldn't trouble his son. Neah was close, his fragment of a soul helping to stabilise his own sanity, and kept in such a way that he was a danger to no one and Allen could live his life like a normal child.

Some days Mana worried that the personality shift in his son had been a result of his now parasite of a brother, others he just had accept that something like this was always going to happen given the life that Allen had lived.

But it didn't matter anymore, they were all family, and they were all safe in the Ark. And if something threatened them while they were traveling, well, it was family's job to come to the rescue.

The world was still burning, tearing itself apart with or without the Noah's help, but it would last long enough for people like Yuu and Tyki to see their fill before it turned to ash, but none of them were really concerned about that.

They were family, all thirteen Noah and four rescued children with an adopted big brother as a bonus, so who really cared about what happened out there when they were in here?

The Ark was self-sustaining after all, and humans were just monsters waiting to burn.

 **the end**


End file.
